Despite her best efforts to keep the pain at bay, far away from her vulnerable heart, Siobhan cannot help but think of her daughters. In her mind's eye she smoothes the unruly strands of Roisin's mane and presses a gentle caress against the small kissy-spots on her muzzle. She traces the planes of Akadi's face, and assures her that her color is the most beautiful because it is growing and changing, just like her. She cradles the twins near to her body, brushing their foreheads in the same gentle caress that she has lavished on them since they were new to this world.
She rests her body against Ailill, trusting him to keep them safe while they all slumbered. She falls into the one man who has loved her unconditionally, unwaveringly, and knows once more what home feels like.
The peace is short-lived, however. The sound of her name is a gunshot among her thoughts and she flinches, immediately stepping back behind the cover of the tree trunk. Before her conscious mind can catch up to the present, all she can imagine is that Nyimara is back. That she had come to finish what she had started with Aranck and that she was here to drag her back into captivity again.
Her warm brown eyes roll wildly in search of the pale-haired witch, but find only the golden figure of Ysabel instead. Confusion furrows her brow and she stares for a long moment as the white-faced mare approaches, her ears half tilted back. A part of her was incredibly happy to see her friend again. To know that she had not been touched by Nyimara's vengeance as well, even after risking her life in the rescue last spring.
But another part of her feared this reminder of her past. This part shied away from the soft, hopeful creature she had been, knowing that such a state only brought pain. Ysabel only knew the good parts of her. The kind parts. The strong parts. She didn't yet know how broken and dirty she was.
Without conscious thought, she shuddered at Ysabel's friendly touch, her gaze ducking down out of the other mare's line of sight. Siobhan attempts to downplay her gut reaction with an apologetic smile and a shiver of her hide as though merely shaking away a chill, but it is a poor disguise. Her skin burned with shame where her friend's gentle caress has pressed. "I'm fine," she offers quietly, unsure of how else to answer. Her wounds were healing. She had ceased to be interesting to Aranck. She was out of Nyimara's reach. She had her freedom. By all accounts she should be fine, and yet she had never felt further from it.
Eager to push the focus from herself, she grasps onto the tears that she can see on Ysabel's face gratefully. As sad as she was to see her friend upset, she was inordinately glad that there was something else to focus on. "What about you, Ysa? What's wrong?"
There were a million things that could have gone wrong since the last time they had seen each other, and her gaze goes to the pretty mare's hip, instantly searching for the pale colt she had been nursing. Not seeing him, her brown clouds again with worry and she half reaches for her friend before holding back. "Your son, is he okay?"
The reminder of Ysabel's child brings her own to mind again and her lips tighten at the memory of pain that swells in her chest. She'd give anything to rewind time so that she might hold them again and know the peace of their presence.